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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 16, 1983
PAGE 11
The time has come for all Europeans to recognize the anachro
nistic nature of their defense relati6nship--characterized by the
primacy and prestige of the superpowers--which prevents East and
West Europeans from living together as Europeans. This situation
cannot be justified endlessly by the standard superpower argument
that it would be irresponsible
to
dismantle a system that since
its inception has prevented hot war in Europe.
On the contrary, it may be dangerous for all concerned when power
structures become obsolete through growing doctrinaire rigidity.
Walt
w.
Rostow, national security adviser for Presidents Kennedy
and Johnson, pointed out in THE NEW YORK TIMES in January 1982:
"What is now required is� vision--a farsighted plan to end the
confrontation in Central Europe that, for� years, has passed
for normality."•••
In Eastern and Central Europe the system of dependent, conformist
regimes created by Stalin now fulfills inadequately its function
as a glacis [buffer zone] for the Soviet Union. Patterned after
the Soviet model, the system has failed economically and
socially. From the strict point of view of Soviet security...the
110 million Poles, Czechs, East Germans, Hungarians, Romanians,
and Bulgarians who live under communist rule require economic
subsidies within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
(COMECON) and represent a potentially disruptive political and
social force•••.
Yet Moscow will be unwilling to face such realities until the
West clearly signals acceptance of the legitimate security
requirements of the Soviet Union and develops a comprehensive
proposal for economic cooperation--a New Deal-Marshall Plan-type
proposal•••to include the Soviet Union and its allies..••
The West must.••help stabilize the Soviet economy by modernizing
its civilian sectors--a task Moscow cannot manage on its own•.•.
Such a transformation requires� revision of security considera
tions by both the Soviets and the Americans as well as a willing
ness in Moscow to initiate far-reaching economic reforms•.•aimed
at improving productivity and the quality of production of the
Soviet economy. Business cooperation could be developed without
compromising either partner's social philosophies or practices,
and thus fundamental political structures would remain unthreat
ened..•. �ignificantly, Pope John Paul II has alluded to a simi
lar bridging, by religion, of today's political/ideological
boundaries in Europe.]
Any serious effort to create a peaceful balance between the
superpowers, however, must inevitably address the state of
affairs where confrontation began: in the heart of Europe. A
series of bold proposals by the United States and the West
European industrial countries to establish an autonomous Europe
could provide the framework for a new global understanding
between the United States and the Soviet Union.
An essential precondition for such an evolution would be ending
both Soviet and American military presence in East and West